“Monitoring O2?”
An 81 year old woman with Alzheimer’s and COPD is on oxygen 100% of the time. We monitor her O2 at night because she has a tendency to take her O2 off at night and forget to put it back on. My phone will alarm if her O2 goes below 80. My question is two fold. 1. How dangerous is it to drop below 80 for a short period of time. In other words, how long before tissue or other damage can occur? 2. Should I set the alarm level to a higher number such as 85 or 90? She dips below 90 even with oxygen on at times. She is on 2 liters of oxygen. I don’t want to risk her health by not getting to her quick enough to make sure she has oxygen back on.
Female | 81 years old
Conditions: Alzheimer’s and COOD
3 Answers
Oxygen desaturation the way it is monitored at home is only checking the oxygen saturation of the finger or sometimes the earlobe. This is a natural process with the diseases you describe and wearing oxygen is very uncomfortable for your family member. This is the reason you will frequently find it being removed by the patient. if they are comfortable, you’re going to run yourself ragged trying to chase this because it will continue to decline with the disease processes.
You say a short time that could mean a lot of different things generally speaking she should be able to handle in the upper 70s for a minute or two but not advisable the other part of the question is I would be on monitoring a trigger trigger your car at the little higher point then 80 probably should be closer to 85 to 90
I will be on vacation and not regularly checking emails during this time.
